Amazon

People in my neighborhood: for love of Cascadia

I ended my day on the top floor of Trabant Coffee and Chai in the University district. I had neither coffee, nor chai as I settled into my catch-up conversation with KUOW host (and my former student) Ross Reynolds.

I first met Ross before I even knew of the MCDM’s existence when he featured my wife and me on his show, The Conversation, in 2005. We were promoting our first documentary film, Independent America (Hulu link, also available on iTunes), and Ross wanted to talk about it. Amazingly, three years later, our paths would again cross when he showed up at my UW office and said that he had been eying the MCDM for years and felt that the program now sufficiently met his needs. Ross was in both my Strategic Research and Storytelling classes. And in return, he has featured me five times on his show, including a special Fireside Chat at the Sorrento Hotel in 2009.

Speaking of my personal history catching up with me, I had lunch with Richard Smith, the Director of the Masters of Digital Media a couple hundred of miles north of us in Vancouver. Richard was keen to explore collaboration between our similar-monikered programs. Interestingly, I had met with the leadership of the University of British Columbia (and the Canadian government) in 2003 as I tried to promote the idea of a digital media center in Kelowna, BC, where I was living at the time. We went far with the idea, and then nowhere.

Richard Smith -- Director MDM

And somehow I ended up in Seattle doing exactly what I had proposed. Meanwhile, the MDM sprouted up in Vancouver, with a heavy emphasis on “making things” (which I wholeheartedly support). Richard and I discussed collaborating on an event, a possible Four Peaks show, and maybe even a class down the line.

This thinking will also feed my visit to Carnegie Mellon University next month, when I connect with Ari Lightman and his amazing Informations Systems Management program in Pittsburgh.